Rachel Reid says it’s hard to write sex scenes ‘thinking of Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie’
Rachel Reid said she struggles not to picture Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams while writing sex scenes (Getty Images)
Rachel Reid has said writing the sex scenes for Unrivaled became “very weird” because she could not stop picturing the actors from the Heated Rivalry TV adaptation.
The 46-year-old author made the comments during a 29 September stop on her Heated Rivalry Deluxe Edition tour in New York City, where she spoke about trying to keep her work-in-progress separate from the on-screen version of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov’s romance, played by Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie.
“I watched it as it came out,” Reid said, as per E! News. “Then I just said, ‘OK, I can’t watch it again until this book is done because I just need to focus on what I’m doing.’”
Reid added that sticking to that rule was tough. “It was not easy because I wanted to watch the show,” she said.
Especially, she explained: “It’s very difficult to write sex scenes when you’re thinking about [Storrie and Williams]. It’s very weird.”
Why Rachel Reid stopped rewatching Heated Rivalry
Reid said she had watched some rough edits of the show before it came out in November 2025, but still felt she needed distance while finishing Unrivaled, the upcoming seventh and final book in her Game Changers series.
“I love everything about the show. I love everything they did with the characters, but I just needed to stay focused on my version,” she said.
Reid is best known for the Game Changers books, contemporary hockey romances with a large LGBTQ+ readership. Her work is known for emotionally detailed characterisation and explicit sex scenes that are central to the relationships, and fandom around Shane and Ilya has long been intense across social platforms.
‘Increased expectations’ for Unrivaled
Reid also spoke about the pressure of returning to Shane and Ilya after the TV series expanded the audience for their story.
“It was challenging writing Unrivaled for a lot of reasons,” she said. “But I think the biggest was just the increased expectations. Suddenly, within a few months, instead of having a small-ish loyal fan base who really cared about these characters, it felt like the whole world was waiting to see what happened next to them.”
In late 2025, Heated Rivalry became the internet’s obsession for its NSFW-but-tender approach to sex as intimacy, helping push the story beyond book circles and into full-blown TV fandom.
Since, it has propelled both Williams and Storrie to global superstardom – though it hasn’t all been positive.
Recently, Williams’ girlfriend Katelyn Larson, who is a tattoo artist, was forced to ask fans to stop booking in with her just because of her connection to the actor.
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